Santorum quits, so Romney can focus on Obama

CAMPAIGN 2012

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Photo: Jeff Swensen, Getty Images

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Surrounded by members of his family, Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum announces he will be suspending his campaign during a press conference at the Gettysburg Hotel on April 10, 2012 in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Santorum's three-year-old daughter, Bella, became ill over the Easter holiday and poll numbers showed he was losing to Mitt Romney in his home state of Pennsylvania. less

Surrounded by members of his family, Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum announces he will be suspending his campaign during a press conference at the Gettysburg Hotel on April 10, ... more

Photo: Jeff Swensen, Getty Images

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Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney holds a town hall-style campaign event at RC Fabricators April 10, 2012 in Wilmington, Delaware. Romney spoke at the structural steel engineering company, his first remarks after the news that his closest rival, former Sen. Rick Santorum, suspended his campaign for the GOP nomination. less

Luke Rohlfing, a supporter of presidential candidate Ron Paul, holds a sign welcoming Rick Santorum supporters outside a presidential caucus location Tuesday, April 10, 2012, in St. Charles, Mo. The original caucus held March 17 turned into chaos amid rules disputes and claims of favoritism, and adjourned with police arresting two people and no delegates selected. less

Luke Rohlfing, a supporter of presidential candidate Ron Paul, holds a sign welcoming Rick Santorum supporters outside a presidential caucus location Tuesday, April 10, 2012, in St. Charles, Mo. The original ... more

Photo: Jeff Roberson, Associated Press

Santorum quits, so Romney can focus on Obama

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Rick Santorum's exit Tuesday from the Republican presidential race silences the loudest socially conservative voice on the national stage, clearing Mitt Romney's path to the GOP nomination and allowing him to court the moderate voters he needs to win the White House, analysts said.

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, should be celebrating the surprise departure of his last credible rival, said Los Angeles GOP media strategist Fred Davis, a top adviser to Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman's 2012 run for president.

Instead of getting bogged down responding to issues like contraception, which Santorum opposes, "Romney doesn't have to focus on that idiotic minutiae and can focus on the economy," where President Obama is most vulnerable, Davis said.

Santorum said he was suspending his campaign Tuesday in Gettysburg, Pa. - site of the Confederate army's farthest advance into Union territory during the Civil War - after a weekend of tending to his 3-year-old daughter, Bella, who suffers from a genetic disorder and was in the hospital fighting pneumonia.

Though Santorum didn't specifically say Tuesday why he was pulling out of the race, polls previewing the April 24 Pennsylvania primary showed that Romney had pulled into a virtual tie with him. A loss in his home state would have destroyed the 53-year-old Santorum's future national aspirations.

While Santorum pledged in his 15-minute exit speech to fight on to defeat Obama, he never mentioned Romney, whom he repeatedly referred to in the campaign as "the worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama."

"While this presidential race for us is over for me and we will suspend our campaign effective today, we are not done fighting," Santorum said. "We were raising issues that, well, frankly a lot of people didn't want to have raised."

But many of those issues, like saying that same-sex marriages should be dissolved, turned off all but the most conservative voters. GOP primary voters consistently told exit pollsters that Romney was more electable.

Back to the economy

Without Santorum dragging him to the right on social issues, analysts said Romney must refocus on the economy. Romney is losing by nearly 20 points to Obama among female voters, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released Tuesday, and by 9 percentage points among independent voters in 12 key swing states, according to a recent USA Today/Gallup poll.

Last month, a top Romney aide said the general election was a time for campaigns to "hit the reset button ... like an Etch A Sketch." While Democrats and Romney's GOP challengers ridiculed the comment, Santorum's departure gives Romney a chance to reboot.

Without significant competition - former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is barely campaigning and Texas Rep. Ron Paul has only a sliver of Romney's delegate support - Romney could clinch the backing of the 1,144 delegates needed for the nomination before California's June 5 primary.

Tucker Eskew, a White House adviser to former President George W. Bush and to the 2008 McCain campaign, said Romney "needs to reload (his campaign coffers) and rehabilitate his profile."

That will require a delicate balancing act. Romney needs to simultaneously move toward the political middle while "spending the next few days reaching out directly and publicly to Santorum's supporters," said Karlyn Bowman, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, a think tank.

Stressing competency

Davis said Romney must refine his authenticity by touting his competency and not his empathy.

"He needs to say, 'OK, I have an elevator for my cars. No, I didn't grow up in abject poverty,' " Davis said. " 'But find me a job that anybody gave me that I didn't do well.'

"He may not feel people's pain, but he knows how to fix their pain," Davis said.

Still, Celeste Greig, president of the California Republican Assembly, a group of grassroots conservatives, worry that without Santorum in the race, "Romney will go back to acting like a moderate Massachusetts governor."

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Added Rob Kerby, a senior editor at Beliefnet.com, a nonpartisan religious and spirituality online hub: "There will be a lot less enthusiasm on the part of evangelicals and Southern conservatives now. I wonder if we're going to see a surge of third-party candidates."

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